Shadows at Morning
by Enitharmon
Summary: The CID files on Sir Charles have been reopened after a murder. Blanchard and Horrigan are called in to investigate
1. Induction

_Disclaimer: Some characters in this story belong to Philip Pullman. DI Verity Blanchard and DS Martin Horrigan belong to me and I guard them jealously. They appear here by kind permission of Wessex CID. This story is neither fantasy nor metaphysical romance (except inasmuch as it overlaps with Mr Pullman's story) but crime fiction, and as such it will inevitably contain strong language and unpleasant situations. Readers likely to be offended by these should proceed no further._

**Shadows at Morning**

_And I will show you something different from either  
Your shadow at morning striding behind you  
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you:  
I will show you fear in a handful of dust_  
[T S Eliot, _The Waste Land_]  


**Induction**

_The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept_  
[William Shakespeare, _Measure for Measure_] 

'It's a two-week secondment to Thames Valley at Kidlington', said Detective Inspector Blanchard, replenishing her wine glass from the bottle at her elbow. 'But you know how two weeks turns into months. I told her upstairs I'd do it, but only if I could have you attached to me for the duration. I've cleared it with Openshaw'.

'Well, thanks a bunch Verity!', said Detective Sergeant Horrigan. 'What's it all about? Haven't we got enough on our plates with the Avalon killer?'

'She said she thought we'd all got a bit bogged down in Avalon Vale and a change of scene might help unblock it. There's a case up Oxford way that's been bugging her for some time and she wants us to go and take a look.

'Oh gawd, Oxford, yes. It's not something to do with that Pullman chap she keeps banging on about, is it?'

'I'm afraid it is, Martin, yes. Apparently while we were otherwise engaged a while back she did some stuff based on his books. She calls herself 'Enitharmon' when she does those'.

'Any what? Sounds Greek to me!'

'It is Greek, you prune! Enitharmon is a kind of Eve figure in Blake's mythology so it's all very appropriate, or so she says. I must read Mr Pullman's books sometime, then I might understand why she's so obsessed. He writes whodunnits too, there's one called _Tiger in the Smoke_.

_'Tiger in the Smoke_ was Margery Allingham. I've read that, it's good but it's old-fashioned.'

'Whatever. Pullman wrote something similar so I suppose he likes old-fashioned detectives. He'd like us then! Her upstairs hasn't read the whodunnits, she says she'll get around to it one day. We mustn't be mean about her, she keeps us in business and we both owe her our livelihoods'

'We owe her our existence, though where it's getting us, God only knows'.

'Well, we may hit the big time yet, she says, if she ever finishes the Big One. We'll be doing signings in Waterstones one day. Maybe even make it to the telly. Who do you fancy for you? If only Judi Dench were twenty years younger...'

'I like that Colin Buchanan!'

'Well you would, wouldn't you Martin. He's spoken for. What about that nice Steven Mackintosh? Yes, I can see him as you. But I'm afraid I wouldn't let you get a look in after shooting!'

'Oooh! You going to make a fight of it? How did we get onto that subject? What's this case all about? I keep asking and you dance round it'

'Well, her upstairs wrote her first Enitharmon piece a few months ago, not long after she got bitten by the Pullman bug. She had Inspector Morse pick up a loose end in the plot that was left dangling. It was only meant as a gentle parody, but lots of people wanted her to follow it through. She said she didn't really feel like carrying on with Dexter's rather mannered prose, and besides Morse is dead'.

'And Thaw too. More's the pity, I liked him. Morse the pity! Ha!'

'Hmm. Martin, you'll make it at the Comedy Store one day but you've a way to go yet. High-powered chap, big cheese in the security services, went missing a couple of years ago, right on top of a little bit of unpleasantness that the sweethearts in Special Branch had their fingerprints all over. He never turned up, but no body was ever found, he had no family so far as anybody could find, and the chap he lived with - guy called Allan, said he was the chauffeur but her upstairs and I reckon there's more to it than that and that's your department - never pressed matters. Now something's happened that's made Kidlington reopen the case, she thought that you and I would find it a challenge, and she could go on writing in her own turgid style with the characters she knows best. Look on the bright side, you can ride up there every day on the back of the Ducati if you like. And if we play our cards right, there may be a jolly in it!'

'A jolly? You mean a trip abroad?'

'Switzerland. Geneva to be precise, although she said it might have to be Lausanne 'cos she's been to Lausanne but not to Geneva and the research funds are a bit tight at the moment. Whichever, I'm hoping to persuade her to fix the timing so I can catch at least part of the Montreux Jazz Festival '

'What's Lausanne like?'

'Like Geneva, but without the scintillating night life. I think I persuaded her that it really ought to be Geneva in the circumstances, which I'm sure will become apparent at the briefing.'.

'What's the scintillating night life in Geneva like?'

'This is the city of Calvin we're talking about here darling! But cheer up, apparently you guys are well-catered for and the Swiss are a pretty tolerant lot even if nearly everything is technically illegal. Lots of singles about, particle physicists and the sort of people who work for aid agencies. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. You know how her upstairs likes to finish something before she lets anybody see it?'

'Don't I just. She leaves us hanging around for weeks on end kicking our heels when she goes off the boil'.

'Well, she said this could turn out to be quite a complicated case and she wants to try publishing this story in serial form. A chapter now and then, often enough to keep the punters interested, but not so often that we get taken right off the Avalon case. So we should tell them to keep a lookout for the next instalments. Martin, be honest, am I pissed?'

'I've seen you a lot worse, Verity! Since lots of the readers will be American, perhaps we should also tell them that 'pissed' doesn't mean what they think it does, it means what you get when you've hit the vino too hard.'

'Yes, well, I also get a thick head in the morning and if you're game for it we'll need to be in Kidlington first thing. I'll pick you up on the Duchess at eight. Straight up the A34, we should be there in time for breakfast before the nine o'clock briefing. Be a love, Martin, take this tenner and get me a large gin and lime, and whatever you want for yourself.' 

'Right, we're on. I think this might just turn out to be very interesting...'


	2. Epiphany

**Epiphany**

_And cold the poor man lies at night_  
[A E Housman, _Last Poems_] 

Sunday evening had been warm, humid and sedate; the drunks pouring onto the streets at chucking-out time had been no drunker and no more boistrous than usual, and PCs Beckett and Reed were passing the time eating kebabs when the call crackled through for a reported intruder in Old Headington. Paul Beckett and Heather Reed exchanged meaningful glances before Read pulled the patrol car out into the traffic. It would be dark, it would be quiet, and it wouldn't be Blackbird Leys.

The rich, heady scent of lilacs made a pleasant contrast with the sweet and acrid fug of the Cowley Road. Limefield House proved elusive in the narrow and unlit lane. Only by getting out and walking up and down with a torch was Beckett able to identify the worn lettering in the stone pillars that stood on either side of an eight-foot security gate. He leaned his thumb on the intercom button, counted to twenty in his head, and pressed again.

'Paul, look'. Beckett left the unanswered intercom and strolled over to where his colleague was crouched, peering at the fence. 'I think this is how he got in. don't you?'. A tall screen of laurel and holly was held back from the lane by a six-foot iron fence surmounted by long spikes. Close to the ground, four of the uprights had been cut through leaving a hole a man could climb through. 'Not fresh', said Reed, running her finger over one of the stumps, 'but look how clean the cuts are. I'm sure that wasn't done with a hacksaw'.

'This wasn't much use as a repair', said Beckett, tugging at the square of chicken wire that had been wrenched aside. 'Once whoever it was was through the hole, they've got perfect cover in the bushes. Doesn't look like anybody's home, who did they say reported the break-in?'

'Neighbour saw somebody running across the lawn. Are you going through first or shall I?'

'You're smaller. You go first, I'll follow'.

One behind the other they stooped through the gap and pushed their way through the holly leaves. As they broke out onto the lawn, two searchlights flashed on, making them both to freeze in their tracks. 'All right, we give up', said Beckett, raising his hands skywards in mock surrender. But there was no sound, no movement, only an insomniac bird somewhere in the bushes, the faint hum of what traffic was still passing on the ring-road and the flutter of a cloud of moths dancing around the twin searchlights. The house was in darkness, the heavy green curtains at the windows sealing out the world. They walked around and saw nothing.

'Should we talk to the neighbour?', asked Beckett

Reed shrugged. 'Would they thank us at this hour? What time is it?'

'Half past one. Shall we leave it? Where to now?'

'I like it here. Is that a nightingale?'

'I wouldn't know. It's singing at night. It's a nightingale if you want it to be'

Neither constable was paying much heed to the passage of time or the crackling of the radio. The lane was silent, nobody was passing, and their heads grew closer and their fingers more tightly entwined. Until something made PC Reed sit up straight.

'Shit!', she said, straightening her cap.

'Who's that?', said Beckett. He was alert in time to see the figure running up the lane away from them. The pair burst from either side of the patrol car and started to run, but the figure was now out of sight. Moments later a four by four passed them with a throaty roar, kicking up dust from the road. 'Jeeesus! Did you get the bloody number?'

'I think so Paul. Shit, shit, shit! He must have been hiding in the shrubbery all the time. Can we get after him?'

'He'll be halfway to bloody London by the time we get going'.

'Well, we can try'

They didn't get far. The radio crackled into life before they'd reached Headington Road. All available units to an incident in Wood Farm Road, New Headington. 'On our way', said Beckett as Reed executed a handbrake turn. 'And can you run a vehicle check on a dark-coloured Suzuki Vitara, registration number...'. He peered at the paper Reed passed him, and read out the number.

The little parade of shops was already cordoned off with blue and white tape when Beckett and Reed arrived at Wood Farm Road. In the alley round the corner a blue marquee flapped in the gentle breeze under floodlights. Two patrol cars sat in the service road, bouncing blue light off the surrounding houses. Even at that hour a gaggle of onlookers had gathered, though the constable trying to assure them that there was nothing to see was quite right, there wasn't much going on. The initial excitement was over, now there were just uniformed officers in little knots of conversation punctuated by bursts of radio. PC Reed recognised Detective Inspector Stringer leaning against a white Volvo dragging on a skinny rollup and sauntered towards him.

'Evening sir! Are we too late?'

DI Stringer dropped the remains of his cigarette down the grid at his feet. 'We've got a stiff', he said. 'Just waiting for the SOCOs. Not a lot you can do, we've got everybody we need at the moment'

'Anybody we know sir? Or just local pond life?'

Stringer opened his notebook. 'From the ID on the body, doesn't look like a local tearaway. David Allan, address in Old Headington. Not his kind of patch, here, I wouldn't have thought'

'Funny that sir, we just came from a reported break-in in Old Headington. Limefield House.'

Stringer turned his head and glared at her. 'Did you say Limefield House?'

'Yes sir'.

'Because if chummy back there is who his ID says he is, he lives at Limefield House. Did you find anything?'

'Not at the house sir. No signs of forced entry. But we saw somebody who might have been lurking around and then making a getaway'

'Heather!', Beckett was calling.

'Paul, you won't believe this. Guess where the stiff lives? Limefield House, Old Headington!'

'Very funny Heather. Control just radioed, got a check on the Suzuki. 

'I'm not joking Paul. No wonder nobody was home. The occupant of Limefield House is dead in that tent'.

'And the intruder... Oh sheesh!'

'And you've got a check. What are we doing hanging about? Where to?'

'Jericho'.

'So you can do something useful after all', said Stringer, 'even though you were late'.

The terrace house of dirty-yellow brick in Clarendon Street was easier to identify than Limefield House. PC Beckett pressed on the doorbell for a full count of five and rapped on the wood. 

'Mr Payne?', said Beckett to a man with receding hair who opened the door a crack and peered at him through large round glasses. There was a fresh-looking scratch across the back of his right hand and there was a streak of dried blood on his cheek.

'What's this about', the man asked.

Beckett stepped the pitch of his voice up a gear. He knew without needing to look that lights would be going on in upstairs windows across the street. 'Is that your vehicle sir?', he declaimed, indicating the Suzuki Vitara parked a short distance down the street.

The man looked from the vehicle to the houses across the street and back to the constable. 'Yes officer', he said, his voice barely audible. 'That's my car'

'So you are Mr Payne. My colleague and I just need to ask you a few questions, sir, about an incident earlier this evening'.

'It's Doctor Payne, actually officer. Perhaps you'd better come in'.

A dozen or more pairs of eyes had a grandstand view from the neat upper storeys of Clarendon Street of the two uniformed officers ushered through the door, and behind them the minds began to wonder.


End file.
